The Parallax Gap:A reading from

Letters to a Young Therapist

Vincenzo Di Nicola

BOOK TALK Zizek Studies Conference 2012The College at Brockport, NY

Saturday, 28 April 2012

The Parallax Gap:Viewing the Subject

That is Subject to Change

A reading fromLetters to a Young Therapist

Vincenzo Di NicolaProfessor of Psychiatry, University of Montreal

Doctoral candidate, EGS

The Parallax Gap

• This talk, based on a book of letters to young therapists,reviews training experiences as both therapist and patient intwo opposed schools of therapy - behavior therapy andpsychoanalysis.

• These paradoxical experiences are described using SlavojZizek’s parallax view, applied clinically as the “parallax gap.”

• Attendees will be offered a Zizekian/Lacanian frameworkfrom a seasoned practitioner of therapy and a critical thinkerfor questioning what we mean by the subject and subjectivity,phenomenology, and change as a therapeutic goal. Change isunderstood as part of the larger question of the Event, basedon the work of Alain Badiou.

Vincenzo Di Nicola

Institute of Psychiatry - 1976-78

MPhil, University of London - 1978

Doc Martens & Levis

Skinhead chic

National Front – Founded 1967

Sex Pistols – October 1977

Aldo Moro1916-1978

25º Aniversário

da SPTF

1979_2004

TERAPIA DE CASAL

WORKSHOP

17 de Junho de 2004

Vincenzo Di Nicola José Gameiro

Auditório da Biblioteca MunicipaL

MONTEMOR-O-NOVO

Secretariado e informações: SPTFTelf: 213 555 193 Fax: 213 152 333Av. António Augusto Aguiar, 42–1ºD 1050-017 LISBOA

New Bethlem Hospital

St. George’s Fields, Southwark, London – 1828

Bethlem Royal Hospital

1896

Bethlem Royal Hospital

Bromley, London - Since 1930

Therapeutic Temperaments

• Technocratic temperament

• Phenomenological temperament

The Parallax Gap

A shift in viewing position causing a subtle but important and irreduciblechange in perspective

- Slavoj Žižek (2006)

The Parallax Gap

• Defamiliarization effect - Viktor Shklovsky

• Alienation effect (Verfremdungseffekt)- Bertolt Brecht

• Rashōmon effect - Yoel Elizur & Sal Minuchin

• Parallax gap - Slavoj Žižek

The Art of Lenses

• Close ups and long shots

• Movement in therapy – “spiraling”

Monty the Python

• Biological preparedness – continuum

• Learned behaviour

1962

1971

A Clockwork Orange - 1971

Branom & Brodsky’s “Ludovico Technique” – Aversive conditioning

The Tavistock Clinic

Since 1920

R.D. Laing1927-1989

Cartoon by Thomas Zummer